Yeah, we should probably put that rumour to bed now. As it turns out, not everything that happens offscreen on Grey’s Anatomy is interesting. Like Melissa George’s decision to leave the show, for example.

Melissa George isn’t leaving Grey’s Anatomy because she had a fight with a co-star, or because she’s a screaming homophobe, or because she’s a prissy diva who wanted more screentime. Melissa George is leaving Grey’s Anatomy because she wants to. Frankly we expected more.

Grey’s Anatomy is possibly the gayest show on television. It’s all there – the gay cast, the gay characters, the strong female performances, the feeble indie music soundtrack, the way we’re almost completely certain that Ellen Pompeo’s silhouette is identical to a silhouette of an upturned buttplug – and yet Grey’s Anatomy is probably the worst show on television when it comes to actually dealing with gay people in a sensible manner.

One minute a Grey’s Anatomy star is being sacked for his vocal opposition of homosexuals, the next the show’s most openly gay actor is throwing a tantrum because he’s not onscreen as much as he wants. And then there’s all the muddle with any character who’s written to appear slightly gay.

First Brooke Smith, who played a doctor who may have been a little bit gay, was fired from Grey’s Anatomy because of her character’s gayness, and now Melissa George – who played a character who was a bit gay for about 30 seconds and now either is or isn’t – is leaving the show too.

However, Melissa George probably isn’t leaving Grey’s Anatomy for that reason, though. She just seems to have realised that the show isn’t very good. Or something. Answers aren’t exactly forthcoming. E! Online reports:

Melissa George, who plays intern Sadie Harris on the ABC prime-time medical soap, is leaving the show, sources confirm… So what happened over at Grey’s? My source says there were talks of George staying on, but her rep insists that she never intended to stay beyond the initial eight. “She was pretty vocal about that,” the rep says. An ABC rep did not comment.

Now, as everyone knows, “She was pretty vocal about that” is code for “If Melissa George had to spend one more second breathing the same air as Katherine Heigl then she wouldn’t be held responsible for pinning that awful witch down, pulling her face off and bouncing around on it like a fleshy spacehopper.”

OK, it isn’t a code for that at all. We’re just trying to spice the story up a bit. Because Melissa George leaving Grey’s Anatomy for a reason that hasn’t got anything to do with petty ego-based infighting or stupidity on the part of the producers would shake the show to it’s very core. Honestly, when things can’t even be interesting offscreen, you know that Grey’s Anatomy has had it.

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That's the insinuation being made, anyway. Angelina Jolie reportedly only decided to fall pregnant with twins because she was scared that Brad Pitt would leave her if she didn't.

If that's true then Angelina Jolie is a fool. She should come and shack up with us, because we'd never ask her to get pregnant if she didn't want to. In fact, we hate children so much that we'd make her drown all her existing kids in the bath before we let her move her stuff in. That's the exact opposite of what Brad Pitt wants, which is why we're confident that Angelina Jolie will choose us.

Brad Pitt is like a wild animal, hell-bent on ensuring that his lantern-chiseled good looks and bubblewrap abs are passed on down through the generations. Gwyneth Paltrow, Jennifer Aniston and Juliette Lewis couldn't give Brad Pitt what he wanted, and so he found love with Angelina Jolie. And now that Angelina Jolie has already squirted out one Brad Pitt baby, she'd better carry on doing it or Brad Pitt will leave her before she knows what hit her. Allegedly.

Angelina Jolie is so pregnant with twins, but she doesn't want you to know it. Even though it's clear that Angelina Jolie is either pregnant or fermenting a hundredweight of kimchi in her small intestine, there's been no official confirmation of it yet. But just because Angelina Jolie hasn't said that she's pregnant, it doesn't mean that people can't start wildly speculating on why she got pregnant in the first place.

From what reports would have you believe. there's a clear divide between Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. Brad Pitt likes kids that he's made with globs of his own semen, but Angelina Jolie likes the exotic prepackaged ones that you don't have to eek down your birth canal for hours at a time. And while Angelina Jolie is happy to keep adopting the latter until the day she dies, Brad Pitt wants more of the first lot.

And, according to Entertainmentwise, Angelina Jolie is so scared of Brad Pitt leaving her that she relented and got herself knocked up:

Following a series of heated arguments over expanding their rainbow family, the actress reportedly feared that Brad would leave her if she was unable to give him another biological child. “Then, when she couldn’t get pregnant, Angelina worried that Brad might leave her,” a source confides to the National Enquirer. “That’s when she went to the specialist.” Whilst there has been no official announcement, it's widely believed that Angie is expecting twins, as the result of in vitro fertilization.

While we like the sound of Brad Pitt getting furious because each of his ejaculations doesn't immediately create a baby, nobody really knows how true the report is. If it is true, then our estimation of Brad Pitt has fallen dramatically. Threatening to leave a woman just because she can't get pregnant as quickly as you'd like is a terrible thing to do. 

Angelina Jolie should have just called Brad Pitt's bluff and let him leave her. Not only would she have asserted herself as a tough, independent woman in control of her own body, but she'd have also been so busy raising all her kids that there wouldn't be any time left for her to star in any more rubbishy over-serious films that nobody wants to watch. We'd have all won, in that sense,

Read more:

Angelina Jolie Wanted Another Baby To Keep Brad? – Entertainmentwise 

Montel Williams is quitting his talk show.

Montel has announced that The Montel Williams Show will come to an end this season, leaving the world's troubled in the capable hands of Dr Phil. Well, capable insomuch that's he's basically just a big shouting bear with alopecia. But you get the idea.

You're only human, so chances are that you define good television by the frequency that it reunites real-life victims of sexual assaults with their attackers, or by how many dangerously anorexic girls it can parade in front of you all sad faced. And if that's the case, you'd better suck up as much of Montel as you can, because he's going away soon, and he won't be coming back.

After 17 years spent listening to the problems of people who think they'll get better help because they're on TV – and 17 years of responding with the same furrowed-brow 'your pain is my pain too' facial expression – Montel Williams has decided to hang up his, um, sofa? His funny little beard? Well, look, Montel is hanging up whatever the thing is that defines his show most. We think it's his sad eyes. Montel's hanging up his sad eyes. Reuters reports:

"The Montel Williams Show" will end its run at the end of this season after 17 years on the air. CBS Television Distribution, the syndicated show's producer and distributor, is offering the compilation series "Best of Montel" for fall, which includes 52 weeks of highlight episodes from the show. "We have been honored to have Montel as a part of our family for the past 17 years, and we're very excited that Montel will live on through these 'best of' episodes," said John Nogawski, president and COO of CBS TV Distribution.

It seems strange that Montel should want to quit his TV show now, when the writers' strike means that it needs all the exploitative, cheaply-made formulaic real-life cack it can get. Far from leaving, Montel should be bumped up to prime time, where all of his guests can expose their frailties and failings to the wider world. At least until Two And A Half Men comes back on TV. Oh Charlie Sheen, will you ever grow up? 

But why now? Why has Montel decided to quit his show now? After all, 17 doesn't seem like a particularly significant number of seasons to go out after. Perhaps Montel Williams is leaving his show to pursue his other interests, like threatening to blow up teenage girls. Or perhaps Montel Williams is no longer able to balance the stress of hosting his own TV show with his ongoing battle with Multiple Sclerosis. Or maybe Montel Williams just got sick of seeing a procession of unhappy attention seekers babble on about themselves relentlessly day in day out for 17 soul-sapping years.

Who can really say which one of these is true (coughthelastonecough). 

Read more:

It's A Wrap For Montel - Reuters